"Les
Fauves" (the wild beasts) was the nickname given in 1905 to a group
of painters led by Henri Matisse. Today, their paintings are among
the most popular of all twentieth-century art. Yet when Matisse and
his friends —Derain, Vlaminick, Marquet, Dufy and Braque among
them —first exhibited their work, the reaction of the public
and critics was astonishment and even hostility. Using strong, even
strident, colors, applied in a manner deriving from Cezanne, Gauguin
and Van Gogh, the Fauves took painting back to its basic principles,
inspired by primitive art, popular prints and children's paintings,
and paved the way to Cubism. The artists, their work, their relationships,
their achievements and the critical and commercial response to their
work are discussed in this absorbing book, the first in many years
to offer a reappraisal of Fauvism.
"In a remarkably comprehensive achievement, and without ever a hackneyed word,
Sarah Whitfield gives the reader not only the essence of Fauvism but its before and its after as well." — The New York Times Review of Books
"Les
Fauves" (the wild beasts) was the nickname given in 1905 to a group
of painters led by Henri Matisse. Today, their paintings are among
the most popular of all twentieth-century art. Yet when Matisse and
his friends —Derain, Vlaminick, Marquet, Dufy and Braque among
them —first exhibited their work, the reaction of the public
and critics was astonishment and even hostility. Using strong, even
strident, colors, applied in a manner deriving from Cezanne, Gauguin
and Van Gogh, the Fauves took painting back to its basic principles,
inspired by primitive art, popular prints and children's paintings,
and paved the way to Cubism. The artists, their work, their relationships,
their achievements and the critical and commercial response to their
work are discussed in this absorbing book, the first in many years
to offer a reappraisal of Fauvism.